Men in Space

by Tom McCarthy (Vintage)

The title of McCarthy’s début novel, previously unpublished in the United States, refers, in one sense, to a Russian cosmonaut stranded in space by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. His extraterrestrial predicament provides the novel’s guiding metaphor: below, in Prague, characters move in precarious orbit around a stolen icon. The story progresses via a series of interlaced vignettes recounted by rotating narrators, including a gay Dutch curator, an American E.S.L. teacher, a Bulgarian ex-soccer referee, and a disaffected Czech revolutionary turned artist. McCarthy sends his characters along intersecting trajectories only to show how political and social forces can set them adrift. He is an agile and venturesome writer, adeptly shaping these disparate voices into a thrilling and satisfying symphony. ♦

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